


Loyal

by ASCII42



Series: From Russia with Love [2]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Hydra (Marvel), Loyalty, Natasha-centric, Relationship can be read as platonic or not, SHIELD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-16 12:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10571610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASCII42/pseuds/ASCII42
Summary: Natasha's hit some kind of breaking point.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Author is to American for this and not proud. And is sorry for anything they butchered. 
> 
> I'm also 100% sure that's not how head injury's work. But just....roll with it.

She is done with giving her loyalty to the heavy hitters of the world. 

She was raised indoctrinated to a country. So indoctrinated to that the smallest iota of thought outside of it felt like heresy. Like treason. Like something dangerous. As if it could get her killed just by existing.  

She's 17 and laying on a bunk next to an injured comrade. She won't call her a friend. The thought never actually occurs to her until later. They don't have friends. In fact, she's only here for as long as it takes her to finish cleaning the wound and fixing a new bandage. 

She is going by 1443 and the other is going by 5905. They speak only in Russian of course. Other languages are only for ops. 

"Don't you think it's strange?"  Says 5905. 

"Think what's strange?"   

"They way other people live." 

"I never thought about it. It does not matter. We were created to serve the Motherland."

"What would it be like to live like that?"  

The words were spoken almost too softly to hear but they fell much too loud. As if their existence could cause them pain just by the act of being. 

"The pain is making you delirious. Go to sleep."

She knows that 5905 is not hurt nearly badly enough for that. But the other girl complies anyway and shuts her eyes the minutes she is done with the bandages. Feigning exhaustion.  

1443 goes back to her bunk and tries to do the same. Tries to put it out of her mind. But.....What _would_ it be like? It's not any type of longing. Not any hint of disloyalty. Not yet. At that moment it was just simple curiosity. 

She's 19. The emotion of fear is something that's been beaten out of her. Or she's always feeling it and so she no longer notices. But the man that's just been assigned as her handler for this next mission is....worrisome. He rarely talks. And when he does it's in short choppy sentences with no pretense of politeness, or any other emotion for that matter. At first, she can't read him and that's disarming. 

In the rare moments she does read something from him all she gets is fear. And that's even more alarming. If he's afraid that fear is likely to manifest in violence. And she's likely to be on the other end of it. 

The bosses decide they work well together. 

There in Canada on what should have been the simplest mission ever. They didn't even have to smash any heads. Just watch and grab intel about a targets patterns. But the intel about security had been bad. The whole thing ended with an on foot street chase through Winnipeg. That was until they called in helicopters. One thing led to another and he jumped on one of the helicopters. And long story short 2 hours later she was sitting in a safe house in the Canadian countryside with a concussed Winter Soldier. 

"Hey, you hit your head pretty hard." She says in English because there still on mission. He's just waking up and his eye's blink open with no recognition. 

"Who are you? Where am I?" His voice has taken on an old Brooklyn accent. 

"You're in a safe house. You hit your head on a mission." 

"Where's the rest of my unit?" 

"Your unit?" 

She should just sedate him and take him back to base. But her curiosity wins out and instead, she spends the next several hours getting to know the man named James Buchanan Barns. 

They didn't teach her American WW2 history in Soviet spy school so she doesn't recognize the name then. But later, she makes her way to a public library doubting she'll find anything. Then spends the next two hours reading up on the WW2 hero Sargent James Barns. 

Whoever that was she met. Sure looked like him. And sure new a lot about his life. 

Over the next few years that they work together she learns a lot about him. It's not the obvious things of course. He never remembers her from mission to mission. In Italy, she learns he loves chocolate milkshakes. And from then on she makes a point to buy him one every time she gets a chance. And the delight on his face when he rediscovers it every time makes her heart soar and brakes it in equal measure. 

She learns the things that make him smile and the things that startle him. The things that will send him into a blind violence out of panic. She learns to read him better. And what she sees is so so much fear and anger and pain. But strangely enough none of it is ever turned on her. 

To her he's kind. Perhaps kinder than anyone's ever been to her. And she's not sure how to feel about that. 

Years later she betrays her country to work for SHIELD. And she really thinks, _I'm working for the good guys now._ It's the same type of work of course. All the same things over and over. Except she tells herself,  _I'm killing for the good guys now._

Then SHIELD turns out to be Hydra. And like she tells Steve on the plane, she doesn't even know who's lies she's telling anymore. 

So that's it. She's had it with loyalty to people like that. Because they're not people. There big massive corporations and organizations and they will always have an agenda that is not her own. 

But when James shows up on her doorstep a month after SHIELD falls. (She hid herself well but he still found her. Because of course he did. Because he's the best at what they do.) He shows up looking for all the world like a lost puppy. And loyalty to a person....She thinks she can do that. 


End file.
